A mishmash of Holiday & news related items

• I hate it when I post just three times in one week, but I enjoy it when I wake up and don’t feel any nonsensical obligation to post. So today’s a compromise item post. Scan at your leisure ‘cause that’s how I’m writing ‘em.

• I might be the only person in the world who is chagrined Martin Shkreli is under arrest. I was hoping we could kick him around a little longer. I have a compelling part in my “Use All The Crayons!” talks comparing him with Dr. Jonas Salk who famously gave away the polio cure for free. Now it looks like I’m going to need a new bi-partisan villain. Here’s my September post about the saint and the scumbag.

• I had a great talk before a group of 30 Westmoreland County home ec teacher retirees. It was maybe my best delivery and certainly my most extemporaneous. They really loved me. It makes me feel so good to know my talks are making so many people happy. I have an Omaha gig on January 28 and am in line for about a dozen high-profile presentations. So going into 2016, I’m very confident things are going break my way. I’ll scatter some of the home run lines that really resonate with every audience. Like this … 

• “I remain amazed how many people go to church each Sunday and pray to God to change the world and then spend the entire rest of the week ignoring all the God-given powers we all have to change the world.” Up to then it’s mostly jokes. This line lets them know this the talk has some depth.

• I remain baffled by carrot cake. It’s not bad, but who’s the lunatic who looks at vegetables and thinks cake. Guaranteed, someone out there is trying to perfect a cucumber cake.

• I may or may not getting around to writing a post based on the following tweet: “How would rock and comedy histories differ if instead of John Lennon, Yoko had fallen for Moe from The Three Stooges?” Rather than a blog post, I may try and turn the line into an opera. I think it could be great and what a topic for philosophers.

• After watching the GOP debates, nearly every respectable commentator said the most thoughtful speaker, most reasoned debater and most intelligent presenter was Lindsey Graham. And not one of those commentators says Graham has a prayer of winning and that is one of the reasons why the GOP is right now such a mess.

• Know what it means when you hear “Hoo! Hoo!” in the trees this time of year? Owl be home for Christmas!

• I made that up. 

• I hit the Christmas wall on Tuesday. Our oldest daughter was performing with her middle school chorus group at the Overly Light Christmas display at the county fair grounds. I’ve just had too much Christmas. Too many carols. Too much merry. And not near enough booze. My biggest problem with the holidays is how it cuts into my already merry routine of seeing my buddies. If I don’t get out enough, I get really crabby. But we’re on the home stretch and I do love all the family time the next week will bring. 

• “Try and do something each and every day that’ll ensure all people will complain about how parking at your funeral was a real bitch.” That one gets re-tweeted a lot. It’s a nice line because it means your life’s cumulative good deeds will result in inconveniencing your mourners. Plus, it includes a surprise profanity and profanity is always electrifying.

• I haven't seen a single picture of terror suspect Enrique Marquez where he wasn’t wearing some real goofball grin. It’s rare you see a picture of a terrorist looking at all happy to have ever been alive. Marquez looks like he was always having a ball, a real party guy. I think he’s going to make someone a really great cellmate.

• Many people feeling euphoric over the “Star Wars” release. I hear it’s a great movie, but I can do without the hype and if any of you show up in one of my bars wearing a wookie costume, you’re going to get pounded. I’m not into sci-fi.

• I say I’m not into sci-fi, but I believe in the future childbirth will be done using the same “Star Trek” technology Scotty used to beam Capt. Kirk back and forth around the universe. The baby will go from the womb straight into Mama’s loving arms!

• “The main difference between men and women is women stare into mirrors and see flaws no one else can detect. Men stare into those same mirrors and see perfection … no one else can detect.” I’m very proud of that line and it always gets a laugh. I think it applies to most any man and woman, but the inspiration for it is, of course, Val and myself.

• One of the most surprising things I know about myself is I acknowledge having a massive ego with zero foundational accomplishments.

• Knock Knock:

Who’s there?

Javier.

Javier who?

Javier self a merry little Christmas!

• I made that up, too. Maybe my massive ego is justified!

Martin Shkreli patents the sun

(754 words)

I can see people’s postures improve when I start to tell them why my book is free. I tell the story anytime I’m asked to give one of my presentations.

It’s right there on the first page of every book under the headline: “This Book is Free.”

The paragraphs invite anyone who is struggling to e-mail me and I’ll send them a copy of the book for free. 

“Rodell doesn’t believe a book that, at its heart, aims to help people be happy should be withheld from anyone over a few dollars. ‘It’s said the best things in life—love, friendship, laughter—are free,’ Rodell says. ‘I don’t presume this book is among the best things in life but, by God, there’s nothing to say it can’t keep good company.’”

I’ve responded to more than 500 requests so far. I don’t even charge postage. I’m very proud of that.

The altruistic inspiration is Dr. Jonas Salk and the cure for polio.

It is one of the greatest stories ever told.

During the 1950s height of the Cold War, the fear of polio outbreaks were second only to the fear of a Soviet nuclear attack.

When one case of polio was reported in town, every resident self-quarantined. Neighbors would slam doors in the faces of friends. Pools would close. Churches were empty. No one would leave the house until the outbreak ran its deadly course.

Remember the Ebola panics of 2014? Those involved three people and zero fatalities.

In 1952, a polio outbreak killed 3,153 and left 21,573 with either mild or disabling paralysis. Nearly all the victims were children.

The whole terror passed almost overnight when Salk (Pittsburgher!) found a cure and gave it away for free.

A nationally-televised Edward R. Murrow news show featuring Salk was treated like a national holiday. In it Murrow asked Salk about the vaccine’s patent.

Who, Murrow asked, owns the cure?

“The people, I would say,” Salk said. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

What he was saying is no man should stand in the way of extending something beneficial to greater mankind over crass profit.

I audaciously co-opt his mantle by lumping my crayon book in with Salk’s cure for polio.

“I know people with polio,” I say, “and they are perfectly cheerful men and women. And I also know perfectly physically fit men and women who are just miserable bastards.

“For whom do you think I feel the greater pity?”

Obviously, the soul sick are far worse off.

Yesterday’s news makes me think I should send a crayon-signed book to Martin Shkreli.

He’s the 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, today worth more than $100 million, who raised the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat a parasitic disease that can kill pregnant women, 5,000 percent.

What had cost $13.50 overnight cost $750. That’s per pill.

After widespread vitriol, Shkreli backtracked and said he’d find a new price.

What he has planned for today, I do not know.

Perhaps he’ll try and patent the sun.

How are we in America today producing business men and women who think that kind of gouging over something that can save lives of pregnant women is conscionable?

Was Shkreli raised by wolves?

Trump?

Worse, he doesn’t seem to sense he’s done anything wrong.

He tweeted the what the considered justifying lyrics to an Eminem song: “And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me. So I point one back at ‘em, but not the index or pinkie.”

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan declared May 6 “Jonas Salk Day.” His proclamation to Salk in part read: “Today, polio is not a familiar disease to younger Americans, and many have difficulty appreciating the magnitude of the disorder the Salk vaccine virtually overnight wiped from the face of the Earth.”

When Salk died 10 years later at the age of 80, he was eulogized as one of the most beloved men on Earth, a man who saved the lives of millions. Who knows? Maybe mine and yours, too.

I wish no ill on Shkreli (well, nothing too lethal), but if he were to die today he’d be one of the most despised.

Rich, yes, in many ways, but soulfully destitute in so many others.

I apologize if today you checked in here hoping for humor.

I’m just not up to it.

Plus, I’m fearful if laughter is truly the best medicine, men like Shkreli may have filed for a patent.

Related . . .

Dr. Nancy and the Ebola River Blues

Giving away my book a blue chip idea

Steve Jobs: American iCon

Save health care: Dock doc pay!

Who’ll take on Trump & what Cher has to do with it